


to all who fall

by hellynz



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompt: Dragged Away, Whump, Whumptober, also a little bit of thasmin but not too much, found family trope, this has no backstory and i dont care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 00:16:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20939156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellynz/pseuds/hellynz
Summary: Yaz will get the Doctor back to safety. No hesitation, no fear. Even if it means she has to drag her.





	to all who fall

**Author's Note:**

> Written for yesterday's (oops) Whumptober prompt. Title taken literally from a weird YouTube comment I saw. Thank you to hetzi_clutch and to wreckageofstars for reading it over for me bless you both
> 
> Also happy 1 year anniversary to when the thirteenth doctor came into the world and changed my life forever

“Well,” the Doctor says, letting sarcasm roll over her tongue, spiking sour and bitter into her grin, “can’t really think of another way. It’s not like you’re needed.”

She glances over her shoulder one last time. Yaz is still running, at full speed from the looks of it, rocketing towards her in the dimming light of dusk. But still so distant the Doctor can’t make out the expression on her face.

“She’s far enough away to be fine,” the Doctor mutters, “But better safe than sorry. Should do this quick.”

She lifts her sonic towards the generator and raises the pressure. The metal around heat creaks and groans and she pushes it further, higher, hotter.

As the seconds seemed to slow to minutes, there is no time for her to even second guess herself. A simple twist of her wrist triggers a spark, the generator bursts, and darkness hits the Doctor before she can even feel the heat.

————

The explosion knocks Yaz clean off her feet and onto her back, all of the air rushing out of her lungs as fire lights up the sky for just a moment. It’s almost lovely, peeking through the debris and the wall of dust crashing over and around her. She coughs. Her ears ring. Her head spins.

She doesn’t move for a few terrible, long seconds, frozen watching smoke billow into the sky and mix with the clouds like an infection. Grey invading blue and white. Then, she reaches inside herself, finds that screaming bar of steel terror, and grabs it with everything she has, forcing herself over onto her hands and knees.

She staggers to her feet, head swimming, and almost collapses again. The world shifts in and out of focus around her, but she can just barely make out the epicenter of the blast, a blank patch of ground where the generator had just stood.

Towards the side of the blank patch, a crumpled figure in a singed blue coat.

Yaz’s knees give out and she stumbles forward onto them, barely catching herself before she can faceplant. Around her, the world rains down in shattered chunks, ash dancing on the wind. Internally, she hesitates.

Fear has her heart hammering in her chest, so hard she can feel it even if she can’t hear it over the ringing. For just one terrible, gut wrenching moment, she worries the panic might overwhelm her. She pictures herself standing and running, but the opposite way this time, letting the terror form into a scream as she goes, shrieking and mad into the forest, never to be seen again.

The locals would tell stories of her, she realizes in a dim way that almost makes her start smiling. The mystery girl who lost her mind to grief. The screaming witch whose friend blew up the old shack. The terrifying banshee, who you might find still lurking among the trees if you follow the sound of frightened weeping.

Everything shakes. Her knees are aching. She can still feel heat on her face and hands, like she might be burned. It feels like she has been kneeling for an eternity. That same dim voice tells her it’s only been a couple of seconds.

If the Doctor is dead, Yaz would rather go down in history as a legend told to keep children out of the woods than have to see her lying there.

_But if she’s alive-_

“No,” she growls, panting. She throws herself up again, forcing her legs to work, ignoring the fear and the pain trying to lock them, and shoving forward.

She staggers. But she moves. “No fear,” she gasps through clenched teeth, and realizes the ringing is fading when she can hear herself, voice hoarse and raging.

And when she speaks again, it echoes with the absent minded way the Doctor had said the phrase to her earlier. Smiling, even though it didn’t hit her eyes. Hands on her hips, even if it was to hide that they were shaking. Gazing off into the distance as she tried to leave her friends behind on the TARDIS. “Brave heart, Yaz.”

_‘You lot will be safer here. I’ll be right back.’_

“You goddamn will,” Yaz spits, and she takes the fury birthing in her chest, the frustration, and twists it, and she’s running again even as her legs scream at her.

Time crawls by as she sprints, the terrain stretching away from her like in a dream. She might be running in place. Because the Doctor certainly hasn’t moved, still crumpled over, and now that Yaz can see straighter, smoking a little from burnt patches in her clothes, singed hair. Still as death.

But somehow she must actually move, because then she is standing over her.

The Doctor’s skin swirls in patches of pink and deep red, blackened bits scattered, pieces of her coat and shirt burned away revealing more damaged skin. Yaz’s face itches warm in sympathy. She wonders if she’ll be able to stand again if she kneels, but does it anyway, collapsing too hard into the dirt, dust puffing up around her.

She presses shaking fingers to the Doctor’s neck.

For a few sickening moments, she feels nothing. Then Yaz shifts her hand just a little, and it’s there. Four heartbeats, thudding dully and slower than they probably should, but there. Her own heart starts to slow, aching to match it.

As if from a distance, Yaz feels her face crumple, feels a sob burning in her chest, but forces it all away. She can’t cry yet. They aren’t out of the woods.

She groans as she rolls forward, forcing herself to stand again, slow and sore beyond her years. Plan A had been a conscious Doctor who only needed a shoulder to lean on as they walked back.

Plan B is a lot less elegant. The ringing in her ears is almost gone, and so she thinks she hears a soft sound of pain the Doctor whimpers out as she reaches under her armpits and pulls.

Yaz pauses. They hadn’t moved at all, because the Doctor is settled against a pile of debris just big enough to keep her in place. But it’s quiet again, or as quiet as it can be, with flame and ash around them, far enough away for them to be relatively safe but close enough to make Yaz sweat.

She squeezes her eyes shut against the pain in her legs and her burned face, the ache through her bones, and she pulls again, this time tugging with all of her might.

The Doctor’s eyes flicker underneath her shut lids and she moans, louder this time, loud enough that Yaz is sure.

“Doctor?” she says, almost whispering, then louder after she clears her throat. “Doctor, can you hear me?”

She doesn’t get a response.

So she crouches down, ignoring the pain in her knees and the new one forming in her back. She shoves her arms farther underneath the Doctor’s so that her back is practically pressed against Yaz’s chest, and she grasps at that hot fear-anger energy in her chest and she heaves, up and over the debris and onto flat ground. They fall backwards, the Doctor limp and whimpering as she flops on top of Yaz.

The Doctor, Yaz realizes, cannot be the strong one in this situation. She can’t even try.

She sits them back up, the Doctor in between her legs and slumped back against her, still fully unconscious. She wraps her arms around the Doctor’s waist and lets them sit, for just a second. Holds her up. Relishes, just a little, in being able to. She’s here, she’s real, she’s alive.

“If you could wake up for just a couple of seconds, I’d really appreciate it,” she murmurs into blonde hair, panting already. The Doctor’s hair smells of burning, and, she realizes with horror, is turning red with blood on one side. Her face is grey with ash.

Yaz longs for her to open her eyes and start talking, to take over. To have all of the solutions to this and any other problem they might come across.

The only response she gets is a groan and a useless shuffling of feet, scrabbling against the dirt ground, trying but failing. A soft, slurred apology. But it’s a proper response. The first one. And suddenly the body slumped against her feels about a thousand times lighter. The heat inside Yaz that she’s been squeezing, twisting, using to keep going, suddenly mellows out.

The fear isn’t gone. But it isn’t alone anymore. Fear mingles with fondness, with the million times the Doctor had stepped between Yaz and danger, for every time she’d grabbed her hand to help her up or to drag her through a mirror portal. Her smile, and her guilty scronch. The banter between her and Graham, as he accuses her of something she knows perfectly well is her fault but he doesn’t actually blame her for. Her quiet compliments of Ryan, calling him smart and capable and amazing for even the littlest things, just saying it over and over until he started to believe it himself.

It’s warm, love. And as it trickles through her Yaz realizes it’s different than she thought. It’s not just admiration, or friendship, or that inkling of a crush that she’s mostly managed to talk herself out of. It’s protective. Familial.

“Okay,” Yaz said, still breathing hard. “Alright. It’s fine. We’re gonna be fine.” She tugs at her arms again, readjusting, wincing at the smothered yelp of pain the Doctor tries to hold back. “I just need a quick break and then we’ll be fine. Back to the TARDIS. Find the guys.”

The muttered, raspy protest that manages to drag itself out of the Doctor’s throat barely qualifies as a word.

Yaz snorts. “What do you mean, no?”

There is no response.

“Fine,” Yaz says. Before she can think better of it, she shifts her face from where it is half buried in the Doctor’s hair and presses a kiss to the patch of skin showing on her shoulder. “You’re always so strong. I can be the strong one now. Brave heart, Doctor. We’re family. I’ll get us home.”

————

The Doctor blinks, and she’s standing in the middle of a field.

It’s green, the air fresh as it brushes by her in the breeze. A few flowers, a rolling hill or two. Off to one side stands a seemingly endless forest. Tall green trees scrape the sky, so thick and dense she can’t see past the first layer of them. The sky above her is a bright, shining blue for a moment. Then it is rusty orange, to match the red grass. Then she is back in green and blue again.

“You’ve really done it now,” her former self says as he steps to stand beside her, arms crossed. They gaze together at the smoke billowing on the horizon, and the tiny figure hunched over near it.

“Am I going to regenerate already?” she asks, her voice too quiet, not matching what she knows now of this face, what she’s finally come to be. “Don’t want to yet, quite like being myself. It’s barely been a year.”

“I’m not sure.” He steps forward and she follows, hands shoved in her pockets. “But I don’t want you to either. I fought hard for you to exist, you know.”

“I know.” The sky flashes to orange and back again as she speaks. “I appreciate it.”

They move in silence for a moment, their footsteps silent other than the rustling through the grass.

The Scotsman’s frown is, as their wife said, audible. She can tell he’s scowling before he begins to speak. “I asked a lot of you. When we were regenerating.” He still isn’t looking at her when she glances over - and yes, he’s scowling, eyebrows furrowed towards the smoke.

She shrugs. “Only good things. And it’s better than not being here at all. It was a pretty good start, in my opinion,” she finishes, shooting him the faintest smirk. He smiles too, in that genuine way that makes him look a bit scary. She doesn’t think she knew, then, that it was a scary smile, but it seems obvious looking back.

“Did you end up listening to me?”

She frowns, lets her words roll around in her mouth for a moment. “I think so. Well, yes, I definitely listened. Think I’m following. Doing my b-” she cuts herself off and hunches forward as the figure in the distance jerks and pain suddenly explodes in her.

“We’re getting closer,” he murmurs, and she blinks up at him. He isn’t touching her but has stepped to stand over her, looking down his nose. Studying her. “Can you keep going?”

She glances back up at the figure in the distance. They’re closer, and she can tell it’s two figures. One fallen on the ground, the other stood above.

The sky flickers to orange and back again.

The Doctor squares her shoulders. “Course I can keep going.”

One foot in front of the other, side by side, they walk in silence for awhile.

An ache forms inside the Doctor and, on one particularly sickening throb, she can’t help but grunt, curling her arms around herself, her steps stuttering.

“We don’t usually see each other, do we? See our past selves, I mean,” she asks between pained breaths.

He hums. “Don’t think so. I certainly don’t recall.”

Another stab of pain forces its way through her chest and she stumbles. She’s practically hobbling now, her past self stopped beside her and only taking a step every few seconds. “If I’m- if we aren’t regenerating, then why are you here?”

He shrugs. “If we _are_ regenerating, why would I be here? You know regeneration is between the current and the future. It’s like you said. The past almost never shows up.”

She nods through another wince, arms gripping her sides as if she might hold herself together. Pain forces her to keep her responses short, though she wants to let her mouth run, babble at the man who came before her, tell him everything she is and has done. “Doesn’t make any sense.”

“Then again,” he says, paused beside her once again, still looking down his nose at her, “there’s no reason I shouldn’t be here.”

Blinking, she puts both hands on her knees and looks to see how far there’s left to go. She’d known who it would be, but it still brings a little cheer to her to recognize Yaz, only thirty feet away.

“Not much longer now,” she mutters through gritted teeth.

The Scotsman frowns again, she can hear it, glances behind them and then back ahead. “I don’t have anywhere else to be.”

They make eye contact, finally. Blue-green eyes meeting brown-green. He smirks. She suddenly realises that she is frowning now.

“I can get there,” she says, despite the fact that she’s weaving in place a little, despite the cotton in her mouth and the throbbing in her head. Despite the pain that shoves through her in another wave of agony that leaves her gasping, head hanging. She’s not sure who she’s trying to convince, but she doesn’t think she’s succeeding.

Whether through kindness or genuine trust, he nods. “I know you can,” he says. “But you don’t have to do it alone.”

Steel runs through her veins and she’s up again, moving faster than before. Her past self raises one of his magnificent eyebrows and then strides along, matching her pace. The ground is hard dirt now and their footsteps echo together, his confident and even, hers stumbling and soft. But together.

She staggers around to face Yaz. Sees herself, flat and unconscious, and sees the way Yaz’s eyes are flashing hot with tears. They move in slow motion, as Yaz crouches to the ground and begins to wrap her arms around the Doctor’s torso. They are bathed in orange light.

Wavering, her vision going cloudy and her knees growing weak, she watches the muscles in Yaz’s body tense as she prepares to drag the Doctor to safety.

Suddenly, her own hand is on her shoulder. “You’ll need to be in there for that, I think.” Her past self shoots her that scary happy grin one more time.

“Thank you for walking with me,” she says softly, and then he is pushing her down and back into her own body.

————

_We’re family. I’ll get us home._

The world comes back to the Doctor in fits and gasps.

She is shifting along the forest floor a foot at a time, sliding then stopping, sliding then stopping, each time a more unfamiliar version of the forest piercing the sky above her. Snippets of dark green trees against a darkening sky.

And it hurts so badly, her entire body screaming as she thumps across the ground. Everything in her aches, longs for golden light to spill around her, eat her up and spit her out better on the other end. But it’s just a shade better than it needs to be for her to regenerate involuntarily. Fear clenches her hearts when she considered doing it herself, making her squirm.

Every once in awhile she comes to long enough to cry out. When she does, the world pauses for an incredible moment of relief, of reprive. Only for it to start again almost right away, jerking her along.

Eventually, through the haze of pain, she realizes she can hear Yaz.

“Just- a little farther- and then- we’ll be fine-” she says, but it takes her almost a minute, speaking through grunts as, the Doctor realizes, she drags her across the forest floor.

She tries to answer but can only gasp, her mouth falling open as she jolts over something particularly painful and Yaz’s face is suddenly in front of hers.

“I’m sorry, Doctor, I- are you awake?” Hope burns in her eyes as they look at each other, and the Doctor manages to close her mouth long enough to nod.

“Not-” she rasps, swallowing twice and almost smiling back as Yaz’s lovely face breaks into a relieved grin. “Not feeling my best.”

“I don’t even know how you’re alive, so I’ll take it.” Her eyes flicker up and down the Doctor’s body. “Any chance you could stand?”

_Probably not,_ she thinks to herself. “Help me up,” she says out loud, smothering a cough.

She lifts a shaking hand into the air and Yaz grabs it, tightens her grip, then pauses and shoots her a look. “Be ready, this won’t feel great.”

The world spins around her and she snorts. “Nothing feels great right now,” she murmurs, and suddenly Yaz’s other hand is tapping her on the cheek, startling open her eyes that she hadn’t even realized she’d closed.

“Come on, just a minute, Doctor, just long enough to get you up so I don’t have to drag you,” Yaz says, and the Doctor thinks her voice might have broken, but by the time she manages to get her eyes to focus again Yaz’s face is settled back into firm determination.

“Yeah, I can...” she says, hearing her own words slurred and mumbled in the air. She shifts the hand that’s still in Yaz’s and squeezes. Or at least tries to squeeze, she isn’t really sure how much pressure she manages to give.

“Count of three,” Yaz says. The Doctor nods. “One, two...”

Yaz yanks her forward and into a pit of agony. A broken wail cuts through the air, and the Doctor is upright and slumped against Yaz before she realizes it was her making the noise. She bares her gritted teeth and tries to breathe, just breathe through it, as her whole body stabs with heat. Consciousness closes in towards her, her vision tunnelling into darkness.

Her ears are ringing again, and all she can hear of Yaz is the muffled, far away sound of a voice. No words make it through. Her forehead rests on Yaz’s shoulder, and as she comes back into her body she realizes she is gripping her brown leather jacket with two white knuckled fists, making tiny sounds of pain with every exhale.

Suddenly, she’s shifting. Her grip is manually loosened and her body begins to slide. Forcing everything she has into her legs to keep herself upright, her vision sliding in and out of focus, she suddenly finds herself slumped against Yaz’s back. Two strong arms loop backwards and grab her by the thighs, and then she’s in the air, hoisted like a child asking for a piggy back ride, forcing her arms up and around Yaz’s neck.

Another grunt of pain breaks through the otherwise silent night, but it isn’t the Doctor’s this time.

“You’re hurt too?” she asks, as urgent as she can be, fear and guilt and a protective anger sliding their way into her stomach.

Yaz shakes her head, her braid bouncing against the Doctor’s cheek. “Only sore, I’ll be fine. Just couldn’t get you up on my shoulders by myself, so you have to help me keep you there. Hold on as well as you can, okay? And stay awake.”

_That’s gonna be a lot harder than it sounds,_ the Doctor wants to say, but all she can manage is another groan as they set off at a trot, Yaz’s head down and face determined.

It’s better than being dragged along the ground, but with every shake the Doctor becomes more and more aware of her state. She can feel burns and bruises forming all over her, can smell the blood in her hair and the burned off end. Everything hurts, there’s nothing she can focus on that isn’t pain, and with each footstep it feels like her brain is becoming more and more attached to her body.

“...hurts,” she mutters, feeling sick. She gets no answer from Yaz, just the slightest increase in speed.

The world slips and slides into nothingness as they go, bouncing along, the Doctor barely managing to keep her head from sliding off of Yaz’s shoulder. Sometimes it feels like hours pass between blinks, but the scenery never really changes. Grass and leaves under foot. Trees around them. Pain, endlessly building, never peaking or breaking, just getting worse and worse and worse until-

A prick in the edges of her consciousness. Flooding warmth and concern. Even through the pain, she smiles into Yaz’s shoulder. Her ghost monument.

They tumble through the doors of the TARDIS, Yaz just barely managing to hold herself up on a pillar. Suddenly, strong hands are on the Doctor’s shoulders and Ryan is lifting her up and away from Yaz. She whines a bit at the lose of contact and cracks an eye again, watching Yaz slump with an arm over Graham’s shoulders as the two of them stagger after her.

The Doctor is, she realizes, being carried bridal style. She couldn’t remember the last time this had happened, or if it had ever happened at all. She was sure she hated it, being so small. Weak.

But Ryan was murmuring to her now as he ran. “It’s gonna be okay Doctor, gonna be fine, just finding the medical room or whatever, come on...” his voice trails off as he skids to a halt, looks down one hallway and then back up another.

_To the right,_ the Doctor tries to say, but all she can manage is another shattered groan, her voice weak and high pitched.

The lights dim and flicker, and then the TARDIS is leading them, singing something comforting in the back of the Doctor’s mind. She smiles.

“My ship...”

Ryan stumbles a bit, almost pitches forward, and glances down at her. “Yeah, Doctor, we’re on the TARDIS. You’re gonna be okay.”

She lets her head flop over to glance behind them again, sees Graham and Yaz down the hall. They follow quickly and with purpose, but Yaz is limping, the pain and fear stark on her face.

“You’ve got me,” she whispers. As they finally reach the med bay, Ryan sets her down, a little too harsh and she hisses through her teeth.

“Yeah, course we’ve got you. Now stay here, don’t even try to move.” He’s running off again before she can try to respond, and she watches him open cabinets and look at bottles and equipment, muttering to himself.

She wonders very suddenly how much nursing knowledge he would have gotten from Grace. She isn’t sure how it never occurred to her before. But he’s wasting it now, because-

“Nothing will help,” she croaks, her throat stinging. She smothers another cough, because letting it loose through her burn throat feels worse than the shake her body does to suppress it.

Ryan pauses in his gathering, holding a bottle of something blue and a roll of gauze. “What?”

The door opens again and the Doctor loses her train of thought to watch Yaz stumble in, Graham trying to hold her back but not able to. Yaz rushes to her side and nearly falls, slumping to lean on the bed the Doctor is lying on.

“How are you?” she asks, still breathing hard, and the Doctor smiles up at her, letting her eyes trace over the smudges on her face, the sweat.

“Not ideal,” she murmurs, wincing as she shifts her hips to try to get more comfortable. “But... oh, Ryan.”

She blinks and all three of them are leaning over her, worry creasing their foreheads. She blinks again and they’ve shifted and she frowns, tries to reach up with one hand to scrub at her eyes but can’t quite manage it.

“Think you passed out there for a second, Doc,” Graham says, his voice light but his face full of fear.

“Sorry,” she slurs, feeling her eyes start to shut again.

“Hang on, Doctor, what were you saying?” Ryan asks as Yaz reaches to press a hand against the Doctor’s cheek, tapping her awake.

“What?” She frowns, wracks her foggy mind. She had been saying something, she’s pretty sure. Something about... _Oh._

“Oh. It won’t... nothing in here will help,” she says, letting one arm flop off of the bed to gesture half heartedly around the room. “I just need to get through it, need some sleep. I’ll be fine.”

“What about the pain?” Yaz asks.

The Doctor frowns again. “What about it?”

“Well, what can we give you?” Ryan asks, holding up arms full of different drugs from different centuries. “You said aspirin could kill you once, so what won’t? How can we help?”

Something warm and soft cracks open in her chest, but she ignores it, pushing the feeling back. “No, I’m- it’s just bruising and burns, mostly. Just need rest. Waste of time.”

Her words are sliding away from her again, sleep pinching the back of her mind and pulling. But she forces her eyes to stay open, to slide from one face to another.

Ryan shakes his head. “No, you’re not just gonna suffer through. At least let me clean some of the wounds off.”

She opens her mouth to protest, but all three sets of worried eyes have settled into determination.

Graham leans back suddenly. “Do you think the ship will show me where her room is? Reckon I could find some pajamas or something, at least some clean clothes? And don’t even start, Doc, I won’t hear it.” A panel nearby pops open and he stands to investigate it. The Doctor sends a quiet thanks to her ship for bringing supplies here rather than actually leading Graham to the dungeon she calls a bedroom.

“Yaz, I’ll be leaving you to change her into this once we’ve gotten her patched up a bit,” he jokes from across the room.

“Don’t need patching,” the Doctor mutters sullenly, but nobody appears to be listening to her.

Ryan is already rolling back the Doctor’s sleeves to get a better look at her hands, wincing at the rusty orange blood that drips off onto the floor. As she watches, he rips open a sterile wipe and begins to disinfect, slow and methodical, hands not shaking even a little.

Cool fingers brush against her cheek, and after blinking a few times she realizes Yaz has brought a chair around to her other side and is tilting her face away from Ryan. She tries to resist, a little, mostly just miffed that anyone is trying to get her to do anything at all. But she gives in eventually, lets Yaz turn her so that they’re face to face.

She smiles and starts running gentle fingers through the Doctor’s hair. “Looking at it will only make it worse. I’ll distract you.”

“It’s okay,” the Doctor says. “Can’t even feel it, hand’s gone numb. Plus, Ryan’s brilliant at that, can you believe-” She goes to tilt her head again but finds she can’t, weariness settling over her like a blanket, the soothing rhythm against her scalp drawing her further and further from being awake.

Yaz looks like she can’t decide between crying or laughing. “I mean, I don’t think it’s excellent that you can’t feel your fingers.”

Ryan snorts on her other side. The Doctor grins up at them both. Or tries to, but still can’t quite convince her head to leave the tingly comfort of Yaz’s hand in her hair. None of her muscles want to respond, and that pinch at the back of her mind is getting deeper.

“But you’re right, he is good at that. So let him,” Yaz finishes, raising one eyebrow. The Doctor wants to laugh, tries to, but only manages a quick exhale through her nose.

“I’ll be fine.” She will be, by the morning.

She can just make out that Yaz nods before her eyes shut completely. “I know. But let us help. We’ve got you, Doctor.”

She doesn’t protest again. Ryan is wasting his time, she’ll be healing already by the time he finishes cleaning her wounds, but she doesn’t think he’d consider it a waste. And Yaz should be getting her own injuries treated. But the Doctor isn’t quite as oblivious as she sometimes pretends to be. She knows Yaz won’t move while she’s awake.

Consciousness leaves the Doctor in a sliding, tumbling fall into darkness. But it isn’t the darkness of her nightmares or times alone wandering the ship. It isn’t the darkness left behind after someone leaves, either, or the feeling of an unwilling regeneration. A few bodies who haven’t wanted to go.

It’s darkness like when the Scotsman welcomed her into the world. It’s sad and painful and quiet. But, at the same time, it’s warm. Full. Her family has her. Her past sits and waits in the depths of her brain.

“I’ll be fine,” she murmurs again, not sure she says it clear enough to be heard. And, with the smallest of smiles on her lips, she sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> Kudos make me smile, and please leave me a comment letting me know what you think!
> 
> Also, you still have a few weeks to submit to the unofficial Thirteen Fanzine!!!!! Information below:  
https://thirteenfanzine.tumblr.com/
> 
> Follow me at hellynz.tumblr.com or on twitter @hellynz1
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


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